The vocabulary is separated into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for the purpose of simplicity.

Click on the English word to see information and examples of that word in use (you probably won’t be able to understand the grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you progress through your learning).

A PDF file neatly presenting these words and extra information can be found here.

Notes: It is hard for an English speaker to understand this word. “냄새” is a noun that means “smell.” If you want to say that something is smellY (adjective), you need to use the verb 나다, which is very confusing. 나다 acts as a passive verb which is introduced in Lesson 14.

Examples:
아이들은 자기 부모님을 존경해야 돼요 = Children must respect their parents저는 저의 형을 존경해요 = I respect my brother
만약 제가 선생님이라면 학생들에게 존경을 받고 싶을 거예요 = If I were a teacher, I would want to be respected by students

Notes: Words ending in 내다 can usually be switched to end in 나다 to change the meaning from active to passive (and vice-versa). However, not all words ending in 나다 have an equivalent 내다 verb (and vice-versa). 나다 and 내다 can be used as standalone verbs as well as be attached to other words. Both of their meanings are very complex and depend heavily on the situation. When used by itself, it usually translates to “pay” or to “submit” For example:

Notes: Words ending in 나다 can usually be switched to end in 내다 to change the meaning from passive to active (and vice-versa). However, not all words ending in 나다 have an equivalent 내다 verb (and vice-versa). 나다 and 내다 can be used as standalone verbs as well as be attached to other words. Both of their meanings are very complex and depend heavily on the situation. I discuss this more deeply in this lesson. Furthermore, a detailed list of many ways 나다 can be used is shown in Lesson 128.

Common Usages:
열이 나다 = to have a fever (for a fever to come up)
생각이 나다 = to think of (for a thought to come up)
기억이 나다 = to remember(for a memory to come up)
화가 나다 = to get angry (for anger to come up)
질투가 나다 = to get jealous (for jealously to come up)
짜증이 나다 = to be annoyed (for annoyance to come up)

Examples:
좋은 생각이 났어요! = I have a good idea
우리 아들은 열이 났어요 = My son has a fever

This lesson contains a lot of boring, confusing grammar. I am warning you now.

If you looked at the vocabulary list of this lesson before reading this, you may have noticed something strange with some of the words. A lot of the words look very similar to each other. The reason for this is because today you will learn about passive verbs in Korean. Though I studied passive verbs very early in my studies, it is something that actually took me a year to fully grasp – and not because it is incredibly difficult, but rather that I never received any proper instruction regarding passive verbs.

I don’t really like explaining English grammar too much in my lessons. However, an understanding of what passive verbs are and how they are used in English sentences will help you with your understanding of their equivalent Korean sentences.

An active verb is used when a subject does an action. For example:

In the examples below, the subject is “I”

I eat
I learn
I open

Active verbs often act on an object. For example:

The word “object” here refers to the part of speech that a verb can act on. Sometimes learners get confused and think that an object means “a thing,” for example; “a pencil” or “a door.” In theory, any noun can be an object of a sentence – including people or abstract ideas that are not considered “objects” in the literal (non-language) sense. For example, the objects are underlined in the following sentences:

I love my fatherHe wants respect

I eat rice
I learn Korean
I open the door

Some active verbs by their nature cannot act on an object. For example, the active verbs are underlined in the examples below:

I went to the park
I arrived at the park

“The park” in the above examples are not objects. The verb is not acting on that part of speech. They just indicate places within the sentence.

In all of the above examples, regardless of if there is an object in the sentence or not, the subject performs the action. These are all active sentences.

Passive sentences indicate that an action is performed on the subject. For example:

I was kicked
The door was opened
The hamburger was eaten

In English, passive verbs feel like adjectives because their sentence structures are similar. For example:

I was handsome
The door was big
The hamburger was delicious

Let’s look at an active verb and passive verb being used in similar sentences:

1) I opened the door
2) The door was opened

In the first example “I” am the subject and I performed the action (opening) on the object (the door).
In the second example, “the door” is the subject and the action (opening) was performed on it.

Below are some more active-passive pairs to help you see how they differ from one-another:

All of the examples below are in the present tense. In the present tense, these passive sentences (just like most plain sentences used in the present tense) sound unnatural. For example, I would never say “I turn the computer on.” However, I am using the present tense simply because this is the basic “raw” form of the sentence. They could be applied to the past, the future, or other complicated things could be applied to them.

I turn the computer on
The computer is turned on

I lock the door
The door is locked

I respect my friend
My friend is respected

I cooked the rice
The rice is cooked

Passive verbs (like adjectives) cannot act on an object. For example:

I opened the door (active verb) – correct
The door was opened me (passive verb) – incorrect
The door was big me (adjective) – incorrect

However, sentences with passive verbs can include more information to indicate by whom (or by what) the action was performed. For example:

The door was opened by me
The door was opened by the wind
The door was opened by the guard

I’ll do the same with all of the passive sentences that I showed you earlier:

The computer was turned on by me
The door was locked by the teacher
My friend is respected by many people
The rice was cooked by my mother

Because passive verbs cannot act on an object, you will never see ~을/를 in a sentence predicated by a passive verb in Korean. Remember, ~을/를 is used to mark objects in Korean sentences – and therefore their usage is impossible with passive verbs.

This is probably the most important paragraph in the entire lesson; it is usually unnatural to use passive verbs in Korean. In almost every situation, it is more natural to use the active form of a verb. For example, instead of saying “the house is built” it is more natural to say “somebody built the house” (which implies that the house is now built).

Nonetheless, understanding how passive verbs are used in Korean is crucial to your development.

There are many ways to make a passive sentence in Korean. In this lesson, we will look at the different ways this can be done.

It is also important to remember that passive verbs are verbs – not adjectives. Korean learners often think they are adjectives because they look, sound and feel similar to adjectives and they never act on objects. Always remember that passive verbs are verbs. This is important because you must conjugate them as verbs and not as adjectives.

Alright, let’s get started.

.

Korean Passive Verbs – 하다 to 되다

I’ve told you twice before that verbs ending in 하다 can usually be separated from 하다 to create a noun form of that verb. 하다 then has the meaning of “do”:

나는 일했어 = I worked
which has the same meaning of:
나는 일을 했어 = I did work/I worked

When dealing with 하다 verbs, most of the time you can simply exchange 하다 with 되다, to make that verb passive. For example:

포함하다 = to include
포함되다 = to be included

제공하다 = to provide
제공되다 = to be provided

대체하다 = to replace
대체되다 = to be replaced

You can use passive verbs to create sentences that have similar meaning to sentences with each respective active verb. Structurally the sentences will be different however, because the passive version a verb cannot act on an object. For example:

Adding 어 to 되 creates either 되어 or 돼 with no difference in meaning. (For example, 되다 in the present tense can either be 돼 or 되어. In the past tense, it can either be 되었다 or 됐다.

Often the speaker wants to indicate by whom/what the lunch was prepared, or by whom/what the machine was replaced. For example:

– The lunch was prepared by the school– The machine was replaced by the company

In the examples above, although we are still using a passive verb, information about how the passive verb occurred is given. This is an example of when it is much more common to use the active form over the passive form in Korean. In Korean (and most likely in English as well), it would be much more natural to say “I prepared the lunch” instead of “The lunch was prepared by me.” Nonetheless, the grammar within these sentences is important, so I need to continue teaching it to you here.

In order to create these sentences, you need to remember that sentences with a predicating passive verb can NOT have an object – which means that you CANNOT attach ~를/을 to “the school” or “the company.” For example, the sentence below would be ridiculous and probably wouldn’t be understood at all:

점심이 학교를 준비되었어요

In these types of sentences, in order to indicate how/by which means the passive verb occurs, you need to use different particles. If this part of a sentence is a person, it is acceptable to attach the particle “에게” to the noun. For example:

Again, I highly suggest that you refrain from using this passive voice in Korean. I need you to understand what is being introduced here so I can build on it in later lessons. The two sentences above would be better said as:

The particle ~에 can be used when this part of a sentence is a non-person. For example:

점심이 학교에 준비되었어요 = The lunch was provided by the school

The particle “~에 의해” can also be attached to nouns that are non-people in these situations, but the distinction between ~에 and ~에 의해 isn’t formally introduced until Lesson 78, Since I’m advising against using this passive form, it’s best to focus on the current presentation and not skip ahead.

Also, remember the meaning of ~(으)로 which you learned in Lesson 12. You learned that ~(으)로 can be used to indicate with what tool/device/method/material something is carried out. This means that you can say something like:

But, if you wanted to say that sentence by using the passive verb (to be cleaned), you would have to again use ~(으)로 as the particle attached to 청소기 because that was the method/tool that was used for it to be cleaned:

집은 청소기로 청소되었어요 = the house was cleaned by a vacuum cleaner, whereas:
집은 청소기에 청소되었어요 = is not correct, although most Korean people would probably understand you.

Wow. Confusing.

It’s confusing for me, I’m sure it is confusing to you, and it is actually confusing to Korean people as well – so don’t get too hung up on the difference between ~에/에게 /~(으)로 in these situations because, as I said – Korean people don’t use passive verbs as much as they use active verbs.

What do you need to take from all of this? Because it is so confusing, I wrote the main points that you should know:

Clauses ending in a passive verb can never have a word with an object marker (를/을) within the clause.

Passive verbs are conjugated just like active verbs, even though they feel like adjectives

Though clauses ending in a passive verb cannot have an object in the clause, other particles can be attached to nouns to indicate how the passive action occurred. These particles are usually:

에 – to indicate that something occurred due to a non-person

에 의해 – to indicate that something occurred due to a non-person, but we haven’t studied this specifically yet

에게 – to indicate that something occurred due to a person

~(으)로 – to indicate the tool/method in which something occurred

One other thing. Just because an noun in a passive sentence has the particle ~에 (or ~에게, or ~에 의해 for that matter) attached to it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the noun that caused the passive verb to occur. ~에 could also have its more familiar function of designating a place. For example, we saw this sentence before:

Notice in the example above that the particle “~에” is not denoting that the tax is included by the price. Rather, it is included in the price. Being able to recognize things like this just takes practice and your understanding of this will increase as you progress through your studies. For now, try not to focus too much on the tiny parts of this lessons, and focus more on the big-picture.

Korean Passive Verbs – 하다 to 받다

In addition to the usual way of switching 하다 with 되다 to make a passive verb – there is another (similar) way of making these verbs passive. This can only be done with certain verbs (usually acting on people), and is done by switching 하다 with 받다 (to receive). For example:

교장선생님은 선생님들에게 존경받아요 = The principal is respected by the teachers나는 너의 말에* 감동받았어 = I was impressed with what you said*Remember that 말하다 means “to speak.” By removing 하다, 말 becomes the noun form of “speak,” which is ‘words/the thing you said/what you said/etc…”

Korean Passive Verbs – Non-하다 verbs

So far you have only learned how to change ~하다 verbs into the passive tense. There are, of course many verbs in Korean that don’t end in ~하다. When dealing with words not ending in 하다, there is often a separate (but very similar) word that can be used to indicate the passive voice. These words will always be presented separately in the vocabulary lists. Here are some examples:

켜다 = to turn on
켜지다 = to be turned on

끄다 = to turn off
꺼지다 = to be turned off

닫다 = to close
닫히다 = to be closed

The words above are just some examples of active verbs and their passive equivalents. There are many more of these active-passive pairs, and unfortunately there is no way to instinctively know which one is active and which one is passive. In all of the examples above, the longer word (i.e. the word with one more syllable) is the passive verb. However, sometimes the longer word is the active verb, for example:

붙다 = to be attached
붙이다 = to attach

끓다 = to be boiling
끓이다 = to boil

If you look at these examples, you might think “Oh, so maybe the pattern is – if there is an active-passive pair where “이” is the difference between the two, then the longer word will be the active verb.” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Here are two other examples of active-passive pairs that show the opposite:

쓰다 = to write
쓰이다 = to be written

보다 = to see
보이다 = to be seen

There are many instances of these active-passive pairs in Korean, and there is no way to know which one is active or which one is passive unless you have specifically memorized it. This is just something that you will have to memorize whenever you come across it. The only thing that is helpful is that the active verb usually looks very similar to the passive verb – with just one syllable added or deleted from the active form.

You can treat these passive verbs just like the passive verbs you learned in the previous two sections (되다 and 받다 verbs). Make sure you use the passive verb and not the active verb (for example – use 닫히다 instead of 닫다 in a passive sentence)

When dealing with these passive verbs however, you need to think about whether or not that passive verb is in the state of something. For example, every passive verb you learned in the previous two sections (하다 to 되다 and 하다 to 받다) were not passive verbs in the state of something. For example, again:

Simply means that you were impressed. It does not mean that you are in the state of being impressed. But, in these sentences:

The computer is on.
The TV is off
The door is locked

All of those nouns are in the state of something. The computer is in the state of being on, the TV is in the state of being off, and the door is in the state of locked. To indicate that something “is in the state” of something in Korean, you must add ~아/어 있다 to the passive verb. For example:

As you know, 있다 has many usages and meanings in Korean. Sometimes 있다 is a verb, and sometimes it is an adjective. When used as ~아/어 있다 as described here, 있다 is a verb. For now, this is only important to you when conjugating in the plain form. In the future, there will be other times when this distinction will be important.

Notice that ~이/가 is used in the passive sentences above. In most cases, this is usually more natural with these types of sentences. Don’t worry about that for now (I’ll discuss it in Lesson 17), and focus more on how the verbs (both active and passive) are being used.

I get a lot of people who are confused about this “state” nonsense of these passive verbs. I would like to fully describe how these words can be used to describe that something is in a “state” and compare them to the same passive verb that is not in that state. For example:

저는 문을 닫았어요 = I closed the door
This sentence is an active sentence. It has an active verb, and has an object. This should be no problem.

문이 닫혔어요 = The door was closed
This is a passive sentence. It is indicating that at some point in the past, the door was closed by something or someone. This is the exact passive equivalent of “저는 문을 닫았어요” – the only difference is that we have no idea who/what closed the door. Though you could assume that the door (after that point) was in the state of “closed” this sentence does not specifically indicate that.

문이 바람에 닫혔어요 = The door was closed by the wind
This is essentially the same sentence as above, but in this case we know how the door was closed. Again, though you could assume that the door (after that point) was in the state of “closed” this sentence does not specifically indicate that.

문이 닫혀 있었어요 = The door was closed
This is another passive sentence, but notice the difference between this sentence and the two examples above. Here, the sentence is specifically indicating that the door was in the state of “closed”. Here, we have absolutely no idea if something/somebody had opened it recently; all we know is that, at that time, the door was not open.

저는 문을 닫아요 = I close the door
This is another active sentence with an active verb. Though it makes sense, it probably wouldn’t be said like this unless there was some sort of adverb or other information in the sentence (for example, “I close the door every day at 9:00pm”)

문이 닫혀요 = The door closes
While technically correct, you would need some other information to make this sentence more natural (for example, “the door closes every day at 9:00pm”). This is the exact passive equivalent of “저는 문을 닫아요” – except for that in this example, there is no information given as to who/what will close the door. The sentence is not referring to the door being in the state of “closed”, but rather, indicating that door somehow closes.

문이 닫혀 있어요 = The door is closed
Notice the difference between this example and the one above. This sentence is not referring to the door closing. It is only stating that the door is currently in the state of “closed”

문이 닫힐 거예요 = The door will close
Again, this example is referring to the door somehow closing. It is the exact passive equivalent of “저는 문을 닫을 거예요” – except for that in this example, there is no information given as to who/what will close the door.

문이 닫혀 있을 거예요 = The door will be closed
This is a passive sentence that is indicating that the door will be in the state of “closed” in the future. It does not indicate who/what will close the door; all we know is that, at that time in the future, the door will be closed.

Just because an active verb has a passive equivalent, it does not mean you can attach ~아/어 있다 to that word to describe that it is in the “state” of something. Typically this is only done for words like on, off, open, closed, etc…

A good example of this not working with a passive verb is with 속이다 and 속다.

나는 속아 있다…
… I am… in the state of being tricked.
This doesn’t make sense. Once you’re tricked, you’re tricked. You do not continue being in the state of “tricked” like a door continues to be open once it is open.

Here’s an example that I am including just because I have the audio for it. I’m going to get more example sentences for this lesson shortly with more audio clips:

However, not all words ending in 나다 have an equivalent 내다 verb (and vice-versa). For example, 어긋나다 is a word (to be out of step with something) but 어긋내다 is not a word. At any rate, the two most common words ending in 나다/내다 are:

끝내다 = to finish
끝나다 = to be finished

고장 내다 = to break
고장 나다 = to be broken

It is very common to use the past tense conjugation of both of these words in the passive voice even when the thing is currently broken/finished. In English, we would say these sentences in the present tense, but in theory the thing/task was broken/finished in the past. For example:

As I said before, 나다 itself means “for something to come up/arise/occur” which means it can be used in a lot of sentences to indicate that some noun “comes up”. Three common ways to use 나다 are with 기억 (a memory) with 생각 (a thought) and with 냄새 (a smell):

아! 그것이* 기억났다! = Ah! I remember that! (Literally – my memory came up)좋은 생각이* 났어요! = I have a good idea (Literally – a good idea came up)그 가방에서 냄새가 났어요 = That bag is smelly (A smell is coming out of that bag)그 방에서 냄새가 났어요 = That room is smelly (A smell is coming out of that room)

*Remember that 나다 is a passive verb and cannot act on an object. Therefore, the particle ~이/가 must be used on “것.” You will learn more about this sentence structure in the next lesson.

Literally, this translates to “a big thing/task/work came up!” In Korean, this expression is used similar to the expression “Oh no! Something bad just happened!” A more common expression would probably be “Oh crap!”

You will see “나다” used with many other words throughout your Korean studies. The most common examples of 나다 (or it’s active 내다 form) are the examples above. Other common examples that you will learn shortly are provided below. I haven’t included these words in the vocabulary list above, so you don’t need to memorize them now. I am simply introducing them to you at this point because they are related to this topic.

사고 = accident
사고가 나다 = to get into an accident (for an accident to “arise”)

땀 = sweat
땀이 나다 = to be sweating (for sweat to “come up”)

전쟁 = war
전쟁이 나다 = for a war to start (for a war to “come up”)

멀미 = motion sickness
멀미가 나다 = for motion sickness to “come up”

In a lot of these cases, you will see 나다 conjugated into the past tense when we as English speakers would think of the situation in the present tense. To explain this phenomenon, let me bring up an example from before:

Notice here that 나다 is conjugated to the past but I have translated the English sentence into the present tense. If you imagine your memory as a thing that can “come up,” in theory, the memory had already came up before you said that sentence – therefore making it in the past tense. Here, the context of the conversation can inform you if the speaker is referring to something in the past or present tense.

It is possible to use these words in the present tense, but that would mean that the noun is currently coming up. A good example from that list above would be:

Here again, you can see 나다 conjugated to the past tense but the English sentence is translated into the present tense. Just by the nature of the word “나다” (to come out) in Korean, when sweat has “come out” of your body it means that you now have sweat on your body which we as English speakers would say as “I’m sweating.”

When 나다 is conjugating into the present tense in these cases, it insinuates that the thing is currently “coming up.” In most situations, the difference is negligible and distinguishing them would really be splitting hairs.

However, let’s split some hairs:

땀이 났어요 = Sweat was coming out of my body… which means that there is currently sweat on my body… which means that I am wet from the sweat on my body that had previously come out of my body.

저는 그것이 기억 났어요 = I remembered that… which means that I also currently remember that fact… which means that I know that fact that I had previously remembered

저는 그것이 기억 나요 = That memory is literally currently just coming to my mind

Really, this whole past/present thing is quite advanced and is not something I developed an understanding of until many years of exposure to Korean. As a beginner (you are still a beginner if you are only at Lesson 14!) you probably don’t need to worry about splitting these hairs. However, when I was learning, I would have wanted this to be explained to me at some point, so here I am explaining it to you.

I should point out that we don’t see this same phenomenon when these words are used in negative sentences. For example, if I say:

그것이 기억 안 났어

Does the fact of your memory “not coming up” mean that it is currently not up when you said the sentence? Huh…. I can’t even wrap my head around that sentence.

This type of past-tense-conjugated negative sentence with 나다 would only be used to say that you didn’t remember something sometime in the past. If you want to say that you cannot currently remember something, you can use the present tense conjugation. For example:

So far, you’ve learned about dealing with 하다/되다/받다 verbs, verbs that can be in a state (닫다/닫히다) and 나다/내다 verbs. Sometimes, however, a verb that fits none of these conditions can be put into the passive voice. All that needs to be done in these cases is to add ~아/어지다 to the verb stem to make it passive. Note that this cannot be done with all verbs, but some common examples are:

주다 = to give
주어지다 = to be given
(Note that the word is 주어지다 and not 줘지다)

I warned you earlier, there was a lot of grammar in this lesson. Though all of the grammar in this lesson is very important, and must be understood to continue your development of Korean – keep in mind that it is always more natural to use active sentences instead of passive sentences in Korean.

I’m sure you are very confused! But I did my best to describe everything somebody would need to know when having to worry about the passive voice in Korean.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to make a post on our Forum!